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Sunday, October 20, 2013

FTM2014 - What to put in a Citation Media File Description

There are a number of types of Media Files in your database. This blog post is on a specific group of those media files. Those Media Files are LINKED to a Citation. I use this procedure for all of my Citation Media Files.

This example is for a group of about 100 Family Group Sheets that a cousin provided to me when I started my research. His family had been doing research for years and were willing to share them with me. They are dated in the late 1980's, and I had entered and cited them in the early days of my use of Family Tree Maker. They were all "free form" citations so they weren't very consistent. In an effort to clean this problem up, I am working on a project to review all of these Family Group Sheets make sure I captured all of the data that was contained AND to Scan them and put them into FTM2014.

I didn't use the internal Scanning which is available in FTM2014, but had these FGS's scanned and linked to the Family Group Sheet Template in FTM2014.

In the Media Workspace, using the Media Category that I created, Family Group Sheets, that screen looks like this.

The scanned filename is currently in the Caption field, but is also listed below, in the Lower Right. Remember that this workspace can be sorted by Caption or by Filename, from the Tools menu, Options screen.

The filenames, in this case, are FGS####. I used a 4 digit number for sorting purposes. So, Family Group Sheet 38, becomes FGS00038. Not very helpful for a Caption. So, I changed the Caption to Family Group No. 00038 - Firstname Middlename, Surname format.

In this workspace, with the Caption sort, the FGS's will be in numeric order, with a reminder of who the Family Group Sheet is for.

Switching over to the Detail tab in the Lower Left, that is ONE Link, which is to the Citation. Remember that a media file can also be linked to a person, but this is a Citation Media File. The Right Panel has been updated.

What I put in the Media Description is the Citation or Reference Note for that citation.

Double clicking on the Link to the Citaiton will bring up the Citation screen. Selecting Reference Note Tab, will be the Citation. Select All (CTRL+A) and Copy (CTRL+C) will copy that text.

Then closing that window, Paste (CTRL+V) that text into the Description field.

Where to get Help

A Blog is not a very helpful place to troubleshoot a problem with Family Tree Maker. There is plenty of help, in the Help Menu of the program that is specific to where you are in the program; In the Help Menu, there is a link to the Knowledge Base website, called Online Help Center.